When should I "BUY!" international air??
 

The $100 question! With the airfares in such a crazy state - a girl just doesn't know what to do! And with the airlines going thru such change, I seriously wonder if there will be any "deals" to be had! Currently, DTW-IST is $900. The legs aren;t bad, either-DTW_AMS with a two hour connection in AMS, then AMS-IST. I am seriously wondering if I should not "BUY!" What do you think? Can;t seem to find any international fare trackers-are there any??

Sorry...don't know if that's good airfare or not but you can track airfares at www.kayak.com and you can sign up to receive alerts.

I actually called Delta tonight to change my husbands portion of our reservations. He decided to stay a week longer in Spain. We fully expected to have to pay quite a bit more for him to do that. We purchased our tickets back in April for a trip in October.

Delta charged him a $200 international change fee, and even after that, he is only having to pay $60.00 above what our original price was. So, the airfare has actually gone down since April...go figure.

When do you plan to travel?

I don't use kayak because I was told by an IT type that it loads spyware on your computer. I do use http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/ to compare fares
And btw the 2 hour connection in AMS is not a bad idea.

We tend to buy our tickets earlier rather than later to make sure we can get the flights/days/times we want, rather than hoping for a drop in ticket prices and chancing having to change our vacation plans.

I think that regardless of when you do buy, NEVER EVER check what the prices are doing afterwards - nothing feels worse than finding out that had you waited a month you could've saved a bundle...

Hi AT,

>Currently, DTW-IST is $900.

When are you flying?
....................................
Hi S,

> don't use kayak because I was told by an IT type that it loads spyware on your computer.

If you are concerned about spyware, load Spybot from
www.safer-networking.org

I have had no problems with kayak.

((I))

I've had good luck with Kayak.

<i>I don't use kayak because I was told by an IT type that it loads spyware on your computer.</i>

All that Kayak puts on your computer is a tracking cookie (which you can prohibit in most modern browsers). Computer Associates rates the risk to privacy as very low:

http://ca.com/us/securityadvisor/pes...x?id=453110812

To the OP, all I can say is that there is no special time to buy airfare. You have to follow airfares for various city pairs over a period of time until you get a feel for what the normal price range is. At that point, you will know when a good price comes along.

As for your itinerary, that seems like a pretty decent price, particularly given that it is probably the most convenient itinerary you are likely to get out of DTW. If you can get on a Northwest A330, it will also be about the most comfortable flight you will be able to get on. But, I caution that I don't normally follow this route, so I can't guarantee that it is a great price, but I think it is pretty good.

As a comparison in that direction, the best I can get PHL to ATH for next May is $1100 UNLESS I book Olympia which is VERY risky (due to be absorbed) -- so for a longer trip, for less, seems very good to me! I have checked kayak and Mobissimus (which BTW I like better than Kayak) and also consolidators.

It sounds reasonable to me, too. I'm paying $900 to go from DFW-BCN connecting in AMS later this month. I have been consistently checking airfares since I booked last January and it hasn't gone below what I paid. I say go for it, and move on to the fun parts of planning. :)